allsoend | A search in a maze remembered

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A search in a maze remembered

Who: Ienzo and Perry, although more can enter
What: The third memory in the next chain...where does it lead?
Where: Memory chains
Warnings: Possible violence against Heartless and Nobodies

Those entering the memory would come in to a place that might be familiar, but also might not. In this case, it's the halls beneath the old castle at Radiant Garden. Although it's not currently in its worst state, after the darkness completely overran it, it looks like it's still in a state of slow repair. This must be around when the Restoration Committee was working on trying to restore it to closer to how Radiant Garden used to be.

Ahead, the two can see a young woman walking away from them. She has long black hair, short black shorts, and gloves. She appears to be searching for something, or someone...

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Well, it's not reliving the destruction of the world again, this time. Even so, Ienzo isn't exactly pleased. Here's the aftermath, here's what your world looked like years and years after what you did to it. Still in shambles. He's sorely tempted to just turn around and leave and refuse to come back until the universe stops conspiring to rub salt into his wounds, but there's no sense in being a petulant child about all of this.

Frowning to himself, he huffs and looks down at his platypus companion. "Is she someone you recognize?" he asks, quietly enough that the woman shouldn't be able to hear him.

Perry looks around and recognizes nothing. It's not a world he's been to before in real life or memory. He does spot the girl though and...nope she's not familiar either, though for a split second he thinks it's Vanessa. He looks up at Ienzo and shakes his head.

He gestures though that they should probably follow her anyway...before they lose her.

The woman continues down the hall, occasionally tapping on the metal walls of the hallway with her knuckles. She seems to be listening for a telltale sign, but so far nothing has sounded different.

That is, until she rounds a corner, and comes across a couple of armored Heartless. The woman looks surprised at their appearance, but settles into something more like annoyance than fear. Oh! What a pain! With that, she puts up her fists as if ready to box with the Heartless.

Unfortunately for the visitors, a couple more enemies rise up to greet them: two more Armored Heartless, and a single Dusk Nobody.

Well, that's going to make things interesting. Even if the last memory didn't belong to him or any of the others present, at least he recognized Lea and Isa. Ienzo almost considers asking Perry if he'd mind waiting to see if someone on whom the significance of this vision won't be lost will arrive, but the playtpus has a point.

"Right," he says, and begins to follow after, not invisibly but at enough distance as to not appear wholly suspicious. It could be this will all become clear to them soon enough.

Of course, that line of thought is quickly interrupted by the arrival of a small horde of Heartless and one solitary Dusk. Ienzo raises his hands, spells at the ready, and gives Perry a worried glance. He seems competent enough, but it occurs to Ienzo that he actually has no idea how much combat prowess he has, if any. Hopefully it won't be an issue. He's curious about what dying here in a memory would do to a person, but this doesn't seem like a good way to find out.

Perry shouldn't be as surprised as he is that Heartless are showing up. He shifts and takes a fighting stance, strangely similar to the woman's actually. It's clear that he has a similar fighting style of using his fists but since he's a platypus he DOES have other tricks up his sleeve.

He glances up at Ienzo, giving him a silent nod of assurance. He's done this before and to further show it off Perry jumps forward at the Dusk.

The armored Heartless are not too great of a threat...they tromp quickly but mindlessly towards Ienzo, swords drawn, giving him plenty of time to cast something offensive.

The Dusk, however, is a bit trickier. As Perry jumps at it, the Nobody ducks down at a seemingly impossible angle and slithers around behind him. It rises up again and swipes at the platypus with its claws.

In the meanwhile, the woman ahead of them is dealing with the Heartless in her own special way: punching and kicking them in the face. It certainly seems effective, as each Heartless that tries to go for her gets beaten into oblivion. She's still too focused on her own enemies to notice them yet, but a little noise might draw her attention.

Ienzo can't help but be somewhat relieved that Perry chose to take on the Dusk. It spares him the trouble of having to worry about whether or not the thing would recognize him, even with his heart restored. It doesn't spare him the sudden pang of worry - what had happened to the Lesser Nobodies after the Organization fell? They'd once been people too - but he can worry about that later.

Leaping back to give himself space to work with and so he doesn't accidentally hit Perry, Ienzo summons up his magic reserves and starts to bombard the encroaching Heartless with ice and lightning.

Perry is still getting used to fighting these strange enemies. Doofenshmirtz never had quite this range of flexibility. Now he's the one that has to dodge by flipping over the claws and attempting to slap at the Dusk with his beaver-like tail. It comes in handy, that's for sure.

For the moment, Perry is concentrating on his own battle and doesn't think about Ienzo OR the woman they had been trying to follow.

Ienzo's thunder and blizzard spells strike home, staggering the Heartless but not completely destroying them. They fumble around in a daze from the hits, though, making them easy targets to finish off.

Perry's tail also hits at the Dusk, sending it slithering backwards in recoil. It recovers a lot quicker than the Heartless, though, and tries for another claw swipe at the platypus, this time from above.

Meanwhile, a couple more Armored Heartless materialized, along with some smaller but quicker Soldiers, and headed in their direction. The woman ahead of them looked like she had almost burned through her opponents, and was still going strong. Any more of you creeps wanna interrupt me?!

One final volley, then. It's nice to know that being a disembodied heart and will surrounded by a looming Darkness and quite possibly soon to be lost to an eternal sleep in the embrace of Kingdom Hearts itself hadn't made him lose his touch. Ienzo finishes off the armored Heartless and sweeps the newcomers back with a gust of wind.

"Do you think we should advance?" he asks Perry. "She seems able to handle herself, but like as not we're going to have to make ourselves known eventually."

Used to being attacked from above, Perry rolls out of the way and kicks at the Dusk. It's times like this that he wished he knew some of this magic everyone seems to be so fond of using. He's perceptive enough this time, and facing the right way, to notice that the woman seems to be having a much easier time of it.

Don't want to lose her, he sends the thought quickly to Ienzo. So, yeah, they should probably try to advance.

Another round of magic was enough to finish off the Armored Heartless, and they vanished into darkness and sparkling hearts. The Soldiers struggled to get back to their feet after the blast of wind, but weren't completely down yet. The Dusk took the kick to the head and slithered back down to the floor, wobbling on its stick-thin legs. It didn't seem to be completely ready for defeat yet, though.

In following the trail of the other Heartless, the woman had finally spotted them. She kept her fists up, still a bit cautious since they were strangers, but it was obvious enough to her that they weren't enemies.

Hey! You need any help?

"We were about to ask you the same," says Ienzo, still feeling a little bit odd about talking to a memory (especially one that was likely from when he was either Zexion or dead), but managing to shake it off. He moves, one part to approach her and one part to get a clearer shot at the Dusk without risking hitting Perry. Once properly positioned, he sweeps the lot into the wall with another gust of wind.

Perry backs off when he notices Ienzo taking aim. Might as well not be a hindrance here. Magic seems to be better than fists most of the time anyway.

If that takes care of it, then he hopes that will answer the woman's question. He looks up at her, now that she's facing them, but he still doesn't recognize her which means she isn't from the Tristate Area OR Disney Town.

The move from Ienzo manages to finish off the Dusk, and slams the remaining Soldiers into the wall, completely knocking them out.

The woman flashes a quick grin. Huh, nice one. Guess that's one problem down.

Only not quite. From behind the woman arises another Heartless: a flying Crimson Jazz. The Heartless begins to swell up like a balloon, heating the air around it, and gaining the woman's attention. She groans in frustration.

You all seriously haven't had enough yet?!

Ienzo starts to ask a question, but the Heartless is rude enough to interrupt him before he gets a single word out. Of course it's hard to have manners when you're only questionably capable of higher thought, but that doesn't stop him from being very annoyed about it. Scowling, he raises his hands and begins to summon up another hailstorm.

Perry rolls his eyes. He's learned by now that Heartless tend to attack in waves and apparently theirs wasn't over yet. He takes a breath and leaps at the Heartless, hoping to smack it out of the air with his tail after Ienzo strikes it with his magic. He pays careful attention to the fire though...no sense getting burned.

Both Ienzo's spell and Perry's tail slap attack hit home on the Heartless, but this just seems to get it steamed up more. Its head deflates, releasing a couple of floating heat bombs. The burning spheres of magic are just waiting to explode in the face of anyone getting too close to them. While hurt a bit, the Crimson Jazz starts to swell up again.

The dark-haired woman is obviously not impressed with this Heartless. Stubborn bomb-throwing jerk...

Oh, Ienzo's fully aware of the Heartless's tendency to attack in packs and formations, but that doesn't mean he can't be annoyed about it when they don't even let him get a word in edgewise. Lips pressed into a thin, annoyed line, he summons up another gale to push the bombs back at the offending beast. Fire won't do much to it, but better they explode on it than them.

"As I was saying," he half-shouts over the roar of wind. "Were you looking for something in particular? I may be able to help." What with having spent his entire childhood roaming these halls, but it's probably for the best that he doesn't bring that up just now.

Perry jumps back to avoid the bombs. He wishes he had a bat or something to smack them away. Although on second thought, that would probably not be helpful at all. Perry dodges around the bombs as best he can, making his way towards teh Crimson Jazz for another attack.

One of the bombs is knocked back at the Crimson Jazz, interrupting its next spell and sending it staggering. One of the bombs floats in the direction of Perry and Ienzo, although Perry's dodge of it is successful. The other bomb drifts towards the woman, who sidesteps it and uses the opportunity to uppercut the Heartless, sending it spinning but not dead quite yet.

Fighting doesn't seem to interrupt her train of thought much. Yeah! I'm looking for a guy with spiky hair! You seen anyone like that about?

"That's remarkably nonspecific," scoffs Ienzo before he can catch himself. He immediately looks very apologetic. "Apologies. But there are a number of people who fit that description-"

And here he stops abruptly to sidestep the bomb he hadn't managed to redirect.

"-And I'm not sure I can say anything helpful with only that to go on." Certainly he hasn't seen anyone but her and Perry in this memory, but he can't think of anything to do here other than at least attempt to be useful.

Edited 2014-04-08 03:05 (UTC)

Perry snorts at the question. Ienzo's response is about what he would have said too. How many kids were running around here with hair like that anyway? Did the rest of the universe have an obsession or something?

Color. What he was wearing. His height. Would all be helpful. Perry finally adds.

The Crimson Jazz attempts to recover, and unleash one last volley before it gets killed off. Its head begins to swell again as it builds up heat for another volley of bombs. The woman prepares to give another good solid kick once it floats back her way.

Hmmph. Guess so. So I haven't seen him in awhile, so I dunno what he's wearing. But it's probably a whole lot of black. Blond hair, 'bout as tall as me. And... She stops to pull her face down into a bored frown. Probably looking like this.

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A search in a maze remembered

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